Blowing a raspberry


Blowing a raspberry, strawberry, or making a Bronx cheer, is to make a noise similar to flatulence that may signify derision, real or feigned. It may also be used in childhood phonemic play, either solely by the child, or by adults towards a child to encourage imitation to the delight of both parties. It is made by placing the tongue between the lips, or alternately placing the lips against any area of skin, and blowing. When performed against the skin of another person, it is often a form of tickling. In the terminology of phonetics, the former sound has been described as a voiceless linguolabial trill,, and as a buccal interdental trill,.
A raspberry is never used in human language phonemically. However, the bilabial trill is a phoneme in some languages. Blowing a raspberry is widely used across human cultures.
Spike Jones and His City Slickers used a "birdaphone" to create this sound on their recording of "Der Fuehrer's Face", repeatedly lambasting Adolf Hitler with: "We'll Heil! Heil! Right in Der Fuehrer's Face!"

Etymology

The nomenclature varies by country. In most anglophone countries, it is known as a raspberry, which is attested from at least 1890, and which in the United States came to be abbreviated as razz by 1919. In the United States it has also been called a Bronx cheer since at least the early 1920s.
Blowing a "raspberry" derives from the Cockney rhyming slang "raspberry tart" for "fart". Rhyming slang was particularly used in British comedy to refer to things that would be unacceptable to a polite audience.
"Raspberry" was also given the pronunciation spelling "razzberry" in the US, of which "razz" is an abbreviation.